I know that I, and probably a lot of others, have wondered just what the returns were for recycling metal items.

I'd heard "60%" bandied about for GM & 105 Mining, but I KNEW those were wrong, as I routinely got back much better. There has also been some question what the benefit of the salvage bag was. (For those new or returning to UO, the Salvage Bag was added in Fall 2007, and is a bag purchasable from Provisioners for a little over 1000 gold. Items crafted in them can be salvaged with just one action, by clicking on the bag and choosing the appropriate option. Of course, if you craft by putting the raw materials in the bag to start, the items will all be made IN the bag, making things even quicker.)

After being the recipient of the metal items from about 25 Dark Wisp chests, I decided to knuckle down, and make the tests, since all but 4 items on my list to test could be gotten from the chests, and all (or substitutes) were in sufficient quantity.

First of all, the Salvage Bag results. These were before the 2011 Nerf to the Salvage Bag that removed the ingot bonus.

The smith's bonus for using the salvage bag, was ONE MORE INGOT RETURNED, be it salvaging a dagger (3 ingots to make) or a Dragon Barding Deed (750 ingots to make). It may not be worth it for a quick recycle job, but if you're using the make / recycle means of training a smith, one would use the Salvage Bag, instead of the make / smelt UO Assist macros common to such training. This is especially true since the recycling of an entire bag full of items is near instantaneous, compared to conventional smelting, be it via tool (macro or not) or UOAssist Recycle bag. If there's one place where an EA idea has trumped the UOAssist feature that inspired it, this is it.

(trivia - wearing 105 mining gloves, and using the Salvage bag, you could make daggers, and get back EVERY ingot you put into the daggers being recycled - 0-ingot-loss Runic dagger crafting FTW )

Observations:
*Most returns (percent-wise) are in the 60s.
*Those returns not in the 60s, or in the low 60s, are all ones where the next higher result would have been above 66%. Even the next result for the dragon Barding Deed would have been 66.13%.

Conclusion: The most likely percentage return for 100 Mining, when smelting crafted items back into ingots, is 66%. It may be marginally higher, but if so, it is still less than 66.133%. Most likely, the formula for recycling items is Skill times 0.66, for all mining skill.

Observations:
*All returns are now in the 60s. With the exception of the Dragon Barding Deed, the next step up for each would have been 70% or higher (data from the Salvage Bag tests - not shown for space).
*Some returns did not change. In all of these cases, one extra ingot would have put the return over that of the Dragon Barding Deed's return of 69.2%. The Percentage for 520 ingots (one more than the Dragon Barding Deed's actual return, and shown in the Salvage Bag data) is 69.33%, giving us an upper bound for the percentage for 105 Mining.

Conclusion: The percentage return for 105 Mining (GM + gloves), when smelting crafted items back into ingots, is at least 69.2%. It is most likely 69.3% (105*0.66), which is still less than 69.33%.

So, we now have some facts to replace of 10+ years of conjecture. We can also conjecture that we have been losing an ingot here and there (and those lost ingots add up quickly) because some programmer got lazy, and made the return be "Skill * 0.66" instead of "Skill * 2/3" (which was probably the intent). Just like with using 22/7 to approximate Pi, sometimes approximate isn't close enough.

A. Originally, a character's backpack could hold 400 stoneweight (whether the character could carry more or less is immaterial - only 400 would fit into the pack). However, with the release of Mondain's Legacy, this was increased to 550 stoneweight. Most persons reading this probably have Mondain's Legacy.

B. In addition, the overall carry weight of characters (pack+equipment) has a "safety margin" where one can still recall, while overweight; it is also the point that you do not lose stamina when walking. This is 1% of their total carrying capacity from strength, rounded down (but carrying capacities that are exact multiples of 100 count as the lower category). Typically, a character with 390 carrying capacity (a 100 STR Elf or pre-ML Human) has a safety margin of about 3 stone.

C. As one has to add one's pack contents to the equipment worn, for total weight, you get the following examples.
*A human miner with 125 STR has a carrying capacity of 550 for his pack, but only 537 for STR. If his worn equipment weighs 77 stone, he can carry up to 465 (460 + the 5 stone safety margin for is total capacity) without being encumbered. However, he can weigh as much as 627 (the worn equipment + 550, the backpack capacity). If he is out mining, in a safe spot (and no danger of ore elementals from a gargoyle pick), he can keep going until he gets to 603 without a chance of losing ore on the next swing, 615 if willing to risk losing a double-ore from being human.
*The same miner, with only 20 stone worn equipment, would run out of pack space at 570 stone total weight. So, the miner can watch for being overloaded, and that would be a good indicator to stop and unload/smelt, as they can hold only 2 more large ore after going over the safetly margin.
*Now, take that character, and give them 144 STR from equipment. They now have a safety margin of 6, and a total capacity of 604 stone (610 with safety margin). With the 77 stone suit, they could mine up till they got over the safety margin, but with only room for 1 full ore over the margin. BUT, using the 20 stone suit from the second example, they would actually hit their Backpack's maximum capacity at 570 stone. They will never be overweight, but they won't be able to fully utilize their strength (but, this could, after all, come in handy if a red tries to curse them in Fel).

D. If one mines in the PvM facets only, in reasonably safe areas, this is the perfect excuse for a high-strength (110+) miner to use metal armor (nothing screams sellout like a non-tailor miner/smith wearing all leathers:loser. It can be a good visual aid for high-strength miners, to limit the chance of ore loss, to match your worn equipment (including weapon & shield) to the amount the character's total weight capacity goes over 550 stone, so you'll always know that when you hit an overweight (but not necessarily encumbered) state, you will lose large ore if you keep mining.

E. A person, assuming they have a rune book and a few other things on board, can carry at most 45 large ore or ~275 small (only tool being a pickaxe in hand), more often than not, closer to 40 large/250 small, depending on their supplies in pack. However, with the introduction of the fire beetle in Samurai Empire, few carry around ore anymore, converting to ingots as needed.

In these descriptions, pack animal means "Horse or Llama". Examples are limited to 3 animals out at a time (one mount and two pack animals), due to the stable constraints on non-tamers. Assumes 30 ore capacity as "Best case" for the miner, crafing tools from ingots in the field as a tinker, or storing in pack animal until animal needs the space for ore. Any of the configurations without 3 animals retains an option for a necromancer/miner to summon a Horde Minion in the field.

a. Old-school (no fire beetle):
This is also the information one would need for using pack animals for lumberjacking.

No animals: 40+ large or 250+ small ore (80 to 125+ ingots). A lumberjack can typically haul around 200-250 logs (400-500 stone weight), depending on belongings, character Strength, and race. This number doubles, if the logs are converted to boards.
1 pack animal or beetle*: 133 large ore/800 small ore (adds 266 to 400 ingots). Lumberjacking: 800 logs or 1600 Boards per pack animal.
2 pack animals add 266 large/1600 small (+533 (if 1 small in each packy to get to max capacity) to 800 ingots to the miner capacity.
3 pack animals (Typically, Giant Beetle* and 2 packies): ~400 large or 2400 small ore (80 to 2400 ingots), plus miner.

*Note that after reaching about the 1/3 full mark, the beetle will start developing fatigue, and can only be moved at very slow speeds while mounted. Will move normal speed walking/running behind the miner, even if full.

b. Mining with Fire Beetle:
No pack animal, just miner and fire beetle: if the miner stops long enough to smelt each time he gets close enough to weight (or has ore piling at feet with UO Assist), the miner above can now carry over 5000 ingots home from the field, or send 3000 ingots to the bank at a time with a bag of sending (using all 30 charges at once, with the new BoS powder use system). If a necromancer, can summon a Horde Minion to carry an additional 4000 ingots on the walk back home/into town. This is probably the best case for going the necro-miner route, as it leaves your stable slots open.

1 pack animal & Fire beetle: The pack animal can hold up to 16,000 !!! ingots, meaning that a miner who can keep his pack animals alive on a trip (recalling between safe spots with them) can mine well over 21k ingots between dropoffs. Typically this is all a miner will ever need.

2 packies & Fire beetle: Someone is either a die-hard miner or a sweatshop worker farming ingots for online sales, if you go this route. 32k ingot storage on the two packies means you can probably mine from server up to server down, on two loads assuming you actually stop to eat and use the restroom). Is also good for communal mining activities (multiple miners teaming up to mine an area dry, at once, for guild use/guild vendors)

Other uses of the fire beetle:

Once Bonded, a fire beetle is good for someone who likes getting ore from the Yomotsu mine's elementals. Just send in the person with a bonded fire beetle with a group of more conventional hunters, and smelt the ore as the elementals drop. Similarly, for a combat-capable miner, Mining for elementals in Ilshenar (using a gargoyle pick) can be a fun way to play, with the added benefit of additional ore from the elementals, combined with that dug normally. In both cases, having the Fire Beetle present makes the logistics of recovering the ore MUCH simpler.

This section is now made obsolete by the Exodus spawn replacing Vas Lor Reg on the official, legal, shards.

How to get to the Ilshenar Gargoyle city for crafting specialty Books

1. Head over to a moongate, and select Ilshenar, Honor gate. Then head north till you reach a cave entrance.

2. You'll end up near the entrance to Gargoyle Mining Camp. Run south. Head west into the desert. Gargoyle city is located in the western side of the desert. Possible monster encounters: enslaved gargoyles, controllers, exodus overseers, liches, imps, earth elementals, lava lizards, sand vortexs, efreets, scorpions, and/or mongbats.

3. Welcome to Gargoyle city. Refer to the map for locations to the stonecrafting, stone mining, glassblowing, and sand mining books

Note: One of the Vet Rewards added after this guide was originally written has made this much easier. You can say "Ilshenar Mint" at one of the Crystal Portal house add-ons (1st year vet reward - many vendor houses have them with public access) and it will teleport you straight to the city's bank (see the location in the above picture, with the coins icon).

If you do not have a talisman equipped, this will allow you to see if you can gain when crafting an item, at skill levels below 95 or over 100 (between 95 & 100 is complicated - see below). Talismans affect these numbers, so if one is training, do not use a talisman (unless it gives an exceptional bonus only, without a normal bonus).

Column A: Level you are scrolled to (if any)
Column B: The effective chance of success to which you can still gain when making an item (since the crafting gump doesn't show above 100%, you have the need for the following columns to pinpoint this number)
Column C: This number shows for your Exceptional chance at skill levels 95 or less, for the chance of regular crafting success in Column B.
Column D: This number shows for your Exceptional chance at skill levels 100 and higher, for the chance of regular crafting success in column B.
Column E: If you know the skill level where one hits 100% regular success, then you can add this amount to that skill level to see where your modified skill cap is.1. For Smiths (whose chance to make most items starts at 0% at the "minimum skill to make" point), the point where one is 100% to craft normally is "Skill to make+50";2. For Tailors (whose items start at 50% chance of success at the "minimum skill to make") it is "Skill to make +25".3. For the other crafting skills, this doesn't apply. Firstly, because none of them can go over Grandmaster; secondly, because many of the other crafting skills follow a skill advancement pattern different from the 0.2% per 0.1 skill progression of Smith & Tailor.

*Without talismans, for items that advance 0.2% normal success chance for every 0.1 skill gained. This table will work for most Tailor applications, and some other skills that advance at a 2/1 rate (crafting or otherwise), but note that many other skills advance at a 5/2 or 5/4 rate (sure would be nice to have a list of which does what).

Note that from 95 Skill to 100 Skill, normal success chance advances normally, but the exceptional chance increases temporarily to 0.5% per 0.1 for the exceptional chance only. Add 0.3% per 0.1 skill to the 95 and under exceptional chance, from 95.1 to 100 skill, untill you reach the 100+ skill number for exceptional chance.

The following two links are the above information, expressed as tables for all the items that don't require other skills or ML recipes and/or ingredients to make. Note that the blue areas on the charts are the regions where exceptional chance rate goes up quicker than the normal skill advancement.

The following charts are for items up to and including Mondain's Legacy. Additional high-end cloth armor items need to be added to the Tailor chart

You get your best gains on items that are 60-80% chance of success (unlike many non-crafting skills where the optimum range is between 50-70), though you can gain on anything up to the chance of success (before rounding down to 100%) equal to your Powerscrolled cap.

Tailor-Specific:

1. While it takes longer, getting gains on cloth is cheaper in the long run, so do it while you can.
2. Similarly, gains on studded items, while slower than bone, are also cheaper in the long run, due to the difficulty & costs of bone armor, and that you can't recycle the bone items.

Smith-Specific:

1. Get your mining up as high as possible before starting training, to improve your smelting returns on items salvaged after crafting.
2. USE THE SALVAGE BAG. I can't emphazise this enough. It is much quicker than using the UO Assist recycle agent (and used to give an extra ingot back per item). Note that it is no longer cost-efficient to buy ingots from NPCs, sell the crafted items from training, then buy new ingots - so smelting your items at the best possible ingot return is high priority.

The Tailor version of this is located in the Tailor FAQ. Another version of this (that goes by the point values) is in the Smith FAQ.

To simplify things a bit, here are some attempts to streamline the list (and, dispite my best efforts, I only manage to reduce the 22 reward levels to 12 categories)

Category A: "Sturdy Mining Tools"
Includes: Reward level 1 & reward level 2; considered a "bad" reward in that practically no one will actually do a BOD to GET this reward, but the typical BOD-filling smith will get (and throw away) these by the thousands when filling these BODs to get replacement BODs.
Level 1 is 100% chance of a sturdy Tool; Level 2 is 90% chance of a tool, 10% chance of an even less valuable leather gloves of mining +1.

Category B: "Enhanced Mining Tools"
Includes: Reward level 3 (10% +3 Studded Mining Gloves, 45%/45% split of Prospector's Tool or Gargoyle Pickaxe). Considered a bad reward by those that do not mine for themselves, less so for miners - but many miners irrationally hate the GPA, and there are WAY too many PTs given out (about 5 times too many for average use), so they get dropped constantly.

Conditionally considered a good BOD if
- an Iron large (easy and cheap to fill, and typically will pay you back for filling it from its gold, even if you don't get the POF), or
- a small colored BOD, as it's cheap enough to be worth the attempt.

Colored larges (all normal quality) that produce this reward are considered BAD BODs, as typically a small of this type, as an exceptional, will give the same reward as filling the colored normal large.

Category D: "Powder"
Includes: Reward level 5 (90% chance of POF, 10% chance of Ringmail Gloves of Mining +5)
Typically considered a VERY GOOD BOD as a Iron Large or colored small; less so as a colored normal large (but if you got the spare metal to fill it, the POF + gold will pay for the ingots, at minimum).

Category E: "Low-End Hammers"
Includes: Reward Levels 6, 7 & 8 (6 = 100% Dull Copper hammer; 8 = 100% Shadow Iron Hammer; 7 is a 60%/40% spit chance of these)
Considered a BAD reward for larges, as they only give at most two properties. They have some use in Reforging, so smalls that give these have some value.

Category F: "Anvil/Scroll"
Includes: Reward levels 9 & 11. Each of these has a 10% chance of a special colored Anvil (decoration, highly valued), a 60% chance of a low-end powerscroll, or a Runic hammer (105 PS or Shadow hammer at level 9, 110 PS or Copper hammer at level 11).
Considered a VERY GOOD BOD as a small; "Average" to "Good" as a large (one might put off filling colored plate larges in this category until after you've filled all the other BODs of this metal type you wish filled, due to the metal content)Note: due to the point value system of the BODs, these are ALWAYS 15-count BODs.

Category G: "Middle Hammers"
Includes: Reward Levels 10 & 12 (Copper hammer at 10, Bronze Hammer at 12). These are the first hammers that can make a useful number (3) of properties for making weapons, though copper hammers only add 3 half the time.
Considered a Good BOD as a small; larges that give these are typically considered "Bad", because of the ingot consumption (again, the larges typically are normal quality, with a small exceptional BOD of the same type gives about the same reward, for about 10-20% of the ingots consumed).

These are very useful tools - they raise your effective skill level for crafting (but not for BODs), and can be used in conjunction with Runic hammers by placing it in the smith's hand, when using a runic to craft. However, with 600 to 800+ charges, they are NOT all that important to get many of them, as one will last you a long time. A +15 hammer and a good talisman will allow you to craft every smith item (except maybe the Platemail Do & Kabutos) at 100% exceptional. One can take your time in pursuing them (and if one gets to the point of having 5 or more +15 ASH in your gear, you probably won't be needing more of them any time soon)

Category I: "115 PS"
Includes: Reward level 14; is exactly what the name says. Typically a waste of time, unless filling for the Spring cleaning event to turn in PS for points, or if you've not yet succeeded in getting a 120 PS for your smith, and need a PS to progress above 110 skill. This is the highest possible reward one can get with a small BOD (a Valorite Exceptional 20 count).

Category J: "120 PS"
Includes: Reward level 16; is exactly what the name says. Every smith that isn't dabbling will need one of these. Considered a GOOD BOD as long as you need a 120 PS for one of your Smiths, or if you are collecting BODs to sell/trade. Also, the PS itself gives VERY good points for the Spring cleaning event. This is about where the "bonuses" to high-end BODs kick in to give you a higher reward.

Category K: "High ASH"
Includes: Reward levels 18 & 20 (ASH +30, ASH +60). These give major skill bonuses, and are primarily used for enhancing attempts (each +10 of Smith skill over 100% add +1% to the success chance of an enhance attempt!)
Considered a VERY GOOD BOD.

Category L: "UBER HAMMERS"
Reward Levels: 17, 19, 21 & 22 (Gold, Agapite, Verite & Valorite hammers)
If you're crafting for high value, these are the hammers you shoot for. These hammers cost in the near-million (gold) to millions (valorite) range. when sold on the open market.

Now, to put these in perspective. Good BODs to keep will be in Italics, while those that are judgement calls are Underlined.

IRON BODS
Material Note: Iron normal Items should be bought for BODs, unless you are filling the BODs for skill gain in Smith or Arms Lore

Small, Normal: All are Category A
Small, Exceptional: All are Category B

Weapon, Large 6-part:
Normals are Category B (at one point in the past, some of the 20s were Cs, but that was apparently changed - testing underway to confirm if all 3 sub-types are still Bs)
Exceptionals are category E

Dull Copper BODs
Material Note: You will probably use most of your ingots of this type filling smalls to turn in for POF, if you are running a vendor (you will most likely be able to get much more POF over time than you can personally use).

Shadow Iron BODs
Material Note: You will probably use most of your ingots of this type filling smalls to turn in for POF, if you are running a vendor. There are also several Platemail BODs worth filling, and these will actually help you train your skill (either from skill gain, or gain PLUS getting your 120 Powerscroll). The plate large gold payouts start getting good at this point as well.

Copper BODs
Material Notes: Copper smalls aren't worth filling unless their large reward is good. If you find yourself with a lot of excess copper, you may find it beneficial to fill Large BODs for average rewards that would be considered wasteful to fill if they'd been for the same rewards in other metal categories. Note, though that the Plate Ex 20 LBOD is your first - and often best - chance at the high-end hammers.

Bronze BODsMaterial Notes: Bronze BODs are sort of in the middle - not common, but not as rare as the higher types. Some have really good rewards, yet often the sets are so few and far between to collect, that filling the non-combinable normal 20 counts (and even the ringmail & plate 20 normal smalls) for turn-in at a 20% chance of POF can be a way to keep Bronze stockpiles from being too much of a bother.

Gold BODsMaterial notes: The larges here are either Really Good, or really bad. Top this off with the normal smalls and most of the exceptional smalls having worthwhile rewards as smalls, and one has to pay attention as to what to combine with larges, and what to turn in as small.

Agapite BODs
Material Notes: This is where the really rare metals start, both in BODs and mining (after all, one can get Gold from using a Prospector's tool and a gargoyle pickaxe in combination on a copper vein). Larges get more and more valuable here (though a few bad ones remain), and this is the last area where one can reliably get big gold for a small reward (POF for normal 10 & 15 - Bronze hammers might be worth more, but they are harder to sell).

Minor edits to his original text for clarity - I can't do anything about his screeenshots. The screenshots, of course, are property of rwrj88.

For using Packies instead of a Fire Beetle:

All you do is use the macros, but skip the parts referring to smelting.

Also, so you can mine a lot more faster, just make a packy line, by getting one of them to follow you, then set the second packy to follow the first one, the third to follow the second, and so on.

When the front packy is full, make him follow your last packy in line, and have the second packy follow you now, instead.

Note that when it is time for you to recall or use a gate, you MUST make all the pack animals follow you, or you will probably leave behind those that are following other packies (this may have been changed slightly for recalls, now that your bonded pets recall if within line of sight, but do you really want to risk it?)
---Original concept and pictures Copyright 2005 to rwrj88

Originally part of the Tailor FAQ, this info is moved here and generalized, as it applies to all the crafting skills in this forum.

1. How are items repaired?

Only items that have durability take damage, and will eventually need repaired. All items that are crafted, that have durability, can currently be repaired, but a few items that are only found as loot on creatures (cannot yet be crafted by players) are currently bugged, and cannot be repaired. The UO developers have promised to remedy this situation, but only about half of the items that have been like that for the 11 year history of UO have been fixed so far.

On the crafting tools, there is an option called "Repair item". Hit the repair item button and target the item. Sometimes the item will lose durability when repairing, generally based on the crafter's level and the damage the item has taken, so I suggest you only do it when the item really needs it as to not lose durability too fast. Any item that has lost 40 or more durability is almost certain to lose that one point of durability. However, this loss can be offset by Powder of Fortifying (see part 3).

Note that left unrepaired, an item can reach 0 on its normal durability (the number on the left side of the "/"), and each time it takes damage, until repaired, it will lose damage from its Maximum Durability (the number on the right side if the "/"). So, if an item reduced to 0/55 durability takes damage 5 times, it will become 0/50 durability. If the Maximum durability of an item reaches 0, it is completely destroyed, and disappears.

2. How do I make repair deeds?

Repair Deeds are items usable by non-crafters to repair their items, and are created by the specific crafter type (Blacksmith, Tailor, Tinker, Carpenter, Fletcher). These deeds can only be made by crafters who are Master level (90) skill or higher in the appropriate skill.

While these can be very helpful (in fact, some people can even make money selling them), they do have their down sides.

They are not as good at repairing items as an actual crafter. They are much more likely to cause the item to lose a point of durability, and almost always fail on repairs to items with 0/xxx durability. A failure will destroy the deed as well.

They can only be used in an official NPC shop of the appropriate type. Attempting to use a repair deed outside such an area will result in an error message telling you that you aren't in the right kind of area, but will not damage the deed.

To make Repair Deeds, you need to have some blank scrolls in your backpack - you can buy blank scrolls from NPC mages, scribes and mapmakers. You then use the "repair item" option on your crafting tool (sewing kit for tailors, hammers or tongs for smiths, Tinker Tools, Fletching tools, and the many carpentry tools, etc.) and target the blank scrolls.

When you do, a repair deed will appear in your pack for that tool's skill, if you are of high enough skill. That deed will have the creator's name on it, as well as the skill level title of the creator (Master, Grandmaster, Elder, Legendary). Unfortunately, no matter how many blank scrolls you have stacked you can only make one repair deed at a time.

Note that making repair deeds does NOT use a tool use, and a Smith can boost the level of their deeds to as high as Legendary by holding an Ancient Smithy Hammer, and using it to make the Repair Deeds.

Using the repair deed requires you to double-click the deed; if you are in an area that allows the deed to be used, you will then get a targeting cursor. Target the item to be repaired. If a valid target, that has less than full durability, the item will either be repaired (possibly losing a single point from its maximum durability), or fail to be repaired (and definitely losing a point of maximum durability). In either case, the the repair deed is consumed. If an item does not need repair, or is not a valid target, the deed is not consumed.

3. What is Powder of Fortifying?

This is a Blacksmith Bulk Order Deed reward. Originally called Powder of Temperament, it originally only worked on Blacksmith items, but was changed with Publish 21 to Powder of Fortifying, which works on nearly all items with durability (the exceptions being some event items and artifacts).

A full vial of Powder of Fortifying comes with 10 uses (though a few shards had event rewards during the Event Moderator era, that were 50-use vials). One can double-click the vial, and target an item with durability that is under x/255. The one use will raise the durability by 10, and the maximum durability by 10, or to 255, whichever is lower. One cannot raise maximum durability over 255 with Powder of Fortifying.

Often, it is necessary for severely damaged items (those whose durability has been reduced to 0/xxx) to have Powder of Fortifying used on them to raise them to 10/(xxx+10), for a repair attempt to have more than a slim chance of success. Other items, due to the inability to repair bugs (such as pitchforks) can ONLY be repaired by massive application of the Powder.

Examples of Powder use:

Using Powder of Fortifying once on an item at 40/45 durability, will raise it to 50/55 durability.

Using Powder on an item at 0/248 durability will raise it to 10/255 durability

You cannot use Powder on an item that has a number of 255 on the right side of the slash. If it is at 0/255, you must let it get worn down (take damage to its maximum durability) to use the powder on it.

There are a number of dye tubs in-game, most are the result of Veteran Rewards. Plain old normal ones can be readily obtained though.

Dye Tub/Dyeing Tub:
Normal Dye tubs can be bought at any tailor. They do a range of colours and can dye the normal range of clothing items. (not leather, armour or sandals, but CAN dye a Metal Kite Shield). Many of the cloth/leather containers can by dyed with it as well. These colours sometimes seem to "bleed" when applied to certain clothing items and sometimes don’t look as good as NPC cloth or Special Dye Tub colours.

Special Dye Tub:
The Special Dye Tub is available as a 12 month Veteran reward. When you have played UO for 12 months you will be able to select a Special Dye Tub as a reward. The Special Dye Tub will allow you to choose from a range of colours that are not available on the Normal Dye Tubs. The Special Dye Tub colours do not bleed and are therefore considered by many folk as superior to the colours on a normal dye tub although the range is more restricted. This works on the same items that the normal Dye Tubs work on (including the Metal Kite Shield)
The colours available are these:
Use normal store bought dyes to change the colour of the tub.

Black Dye Tub:
The Black Dye Tub is available as a 12 month Veteran reward.
Black dye tubs initially appeared in the game as a bug, but had become so popular and widespread that the Black Dye Tub was made available legitimately. The first legit ones were acquired via a "Clean up Britannia" reward system. These have no age restriction to use if you happen to find a public one. Modern Black Dye Tubs are gotten via Veteran Rewards. They will dye cloth a jet black that in the 2D client has no shading and blends with the background on the paperdoll making a person in a Black robe look like a floating head and hands. This can be used on the same items as the previous two tubs.
You cannot change the colour of a black dye tub.

Furniture Dye Tub:
Also a 12 Month Veteran Reward. Used to dye certain pieces of Furniture, wooden containers, as well as potion kegs. It does nothing to clothes although you can dye dress forms with it.

Leather Dye Tub:
This is only available as a 24 Month Veteran Reward. AS with the others, normal store-bought Dyes are to change the colour of the tub.

Some leather dye tub facts:
1. Must be 24 months to dye leather with the tub
2. Anyone can change the colour on the tub (any age)
3. You can use a locked down tub in a house you are not friended to
4. You can change the colour of a locked down tub in a house you are not friended to at any age.
5. When you chop up leather it retains the colour. However, when you make things with coloured leather, the colour goes back to that of normal leather.
8. When you use a brand new dye tub on coloured leather, it changes the coloured leather back to original leather colour (yes this works on ranger armour as well – you used to be able to dye this)

These are a VERY FEW of the colours that can be chosen (one of which is the dark green of Ranger Armor):

Note: There are a few rare veteran reward tubs than can be used by anyone regardless of account age - ask around on your shard to find out if there are any of these rare reward tubs on your shard.

Runebook Dye Tub (4th Year reward)
This functions similar to the Leather Dye Tub (even has the same colour choices), but is meant for dying Runebooks.

Reward Statuette Dye Tub (5th Year reward)
This functions similar to the Leather Dye Tub (even has the same colour choices), but is meant for dying statues, such as the creature statuettes from the Veteran Rewards list, similar statues from the Collection system, and special loot statues such as the "Phillip's Wooden Steed" Minor Artifact, "The Tragic Remains of the Travesty" & "Mound of Maggots" statues from peerless loot, champ spawn loot statues, etc.

White Leather Dye Tub (Anniversary Gift)These were 2010 & 2011 UO Anniversary Gift Choices. A few were exploited to allow them to dye cloth white, but were reverted by the devs. this eventually led to the following tub being added to the game.

White Cloth Dye Tub (Rare Loot from the High Seas expansion) These were introduced as possible loot from Pirate Ships and Merchant Ships with Publish 69, to counter the effect of the exploit involving the White Leather Tubs. While rare, many of those who have gotten these have set them in public places for public use, to further confound those that sought to make money from the "rare" white cloth.

Other Tubs/Colours:
There are some tubs that have appeared in static areas and some colours that are not obtainable in tubs. They are covered in the next guide, below, as are colors not found from dye tubs.

by Feenicks(updated August 2004 by Boadicea/*; updated again September 2009 by Basara)
Latest update: 22 February 2012.

Pertinent to the Tailoring profession (and to a lesser extent, carpentry) is the availability of a range of cloth colours and other such items that are somewhat less commonly available than the standard range. I hope to detail some of the more commonly asked about items and colours here.

When Ilshenar first opened there was a dye tub in the house between Sacrifice & Spirituality gates, that has a sheep pen and loom & spinning wheel (where Grandpa Charley now lives - anyone else think that escorting a young girl to go live with an old man in the middle of nowhere, whose only companion is a sheep, is a bit creepy???). This dye tub had a special colour that was very close to ranger green (as available on Ranger Armour or the Leather Dye Tub), and on many shards, a bolt of cloth in that color is still part of the decoration.

Alas the dye tub may be re-coloured by anyone with dyes. Once re-coloured that particular shade of green is irrevocably lost as the tub does not respawn the green colour at server up. I believe that pretty much all shards have had this tub re-coloured making the colour rare unless you dyed numerous bolts of the stuff. The colour can still be gotten off NPC’s clothes (i.e. brigands etc) but is so infrequent it isn't worth the effort.

2. Ranger Green cloth (Updated!)

This was initially not available on a dye tub. This is a perfect match to the colour green found on Ranger Armour (the deepest green on the leather dye tub is supposed to be the same as Ranger Green). This particular shade of cloth was originally only available off NPC tailors selling this cloth. You have to be lucky to find one, they could be anywhere, or not exist at all on your shard (NPC tailors etc in shops sell certain random coloured cloth, some are good shades, some are not, and the colors offered change randomly). The darkest setting of "Forest Green" on the Special Dye Tub appears to be close to this colour, but until someone comes forward with proof, I cannot refute or confirm they are the same colour. A few bugged leather dye tubs are able to dye cloth the leather colors, as well.

In the December 2008-January 2009 "slime dyeing" event, some slimes spawned with a color labeled as "Deep Forest Green". Leather items dyed with this color appear to be actual Ranger Green, and are darker than the darkest "green" setting on the leather dye tub. Comparing the "deep forest green" slime color to the Special Tub color for cloth, seems to be the same for some items, different for others (perhaps because of the darker natural shade of some items). One is limited in means of testing, since so few cloth artifacts exist that can be dyed with the slimes.
Examples:
Robe of the Eclipse, slime dyed: Appears the same (As far as I can tell) as special dye tub colour
Crimson Cincture, slime dyed: appears to be ranger green (aprons are some of the darkest cloth items)
Doublet, dyed with dye tub at darkest forest green setting: visibly several shades lighter than either of the above. Note though, that the Doublet from Melissa (summer 2008 event) looked to be the same color as the CC, until the cloth was cut and reused (example, making a half-apron from Melissa red cloth results in a red that is obviously not a Crimson Cincture). This color difference for Doublets can explain the variation.

Rumours cropped up of a dark shadow colour on a dye tub somewhere in Ilshenar similar to the one above. If it ever existed, it was probably kept a closely guarded secret by those who know of it for fear of it being re-coloured like the one above. Its existence has never been confirmed, and by this time, is highly doubtful.

4. Rainbow Cloth

Ahhh the mysterious Rainbow cloth.
Rainbow cloth seems to have been a server up rare.
It is illegal to own and may get you banned. If it doesn’t get you banned it will certainly be deleted on sight by a GM. It seems as if it could have been available on a back room table in the tailor in Ocllo/Haven but possibly only at server up. It came as a folded pile possibly in a quantity of 25. It is also a colour that may have initially caused peoples clients to crash, which may be why it was made illegal. Supposedly that crash bug is now fixed however it remains illegal, possibly for consistency (would be unfair to those who had it deleted if it was made legal and some guy who stored it illegally for years could then come out & make a fortune selling it.
It is black with some speckled colour dots on it:

Special thanks to Uogem for much info on rainbow cloth including the picture - and for spawning one of the longest lived tailor board threads...

5. "Zog" Cloth

Zog cloth is a hoax (probably). Who knows? Best info indicates it may have been obtainable by killing certain NPCs. Most zog cloth that has been referred to is a shade of green although a shade of red has also been mentioned. I wouldn’t bother wasting my time with it, chances are if someone is offering to sell it to you they are scamming you with some odd shade or another and just calling it zog.

The word "zog" was rumored to have come from something that appears in the name of items made of it, but that seems to be a myth. If it was true, it was simply some cloth items some ZOG Cabal roleplayers (and not even the main group of them) had a Seer rename (in which case the items might be of questionable legality), as the "real" ZOG Cabal (aka the Followers of Armegeddon) were 1998-2000 Event NPCs, and as far as can be told, their clothes were just normal clothes (based on screencaps from those events).

The color itself, while rare, spawns randomly on NPC tailors & weavers, and as colors for NPC clothing - and is perfectly legal to own - the only questionable items are ones that may have gotten "ZOG" stuck into the name by someone who had the power to do so in the VERY distant past.
(picture currently missing)

6. Nightmare/Necro/Evil mage/Shadow Cloth

This is a Dark shade of cloth. Perfectly legal. It is very similar to the shade of cloth that Shadowlord faction robes come in. It used to be obtainable by killing NPC evil mages and then cutting up the robes to make fresh clothes out of. Be very wary when forking out a lot of cash to buy it, some items of clothing (pants for instance) dyed with the darkest blue of the special dye tub is easily passed off as necro. Buyer Beware on such items. Most items of this cloth have since been blessed. This colour is also a slightly different shade to BOD Reward "charcoal" colour so beware of such differences as well. Evil mages now have varying shades of blue which are far less appealing and far less valuable, beware of the darker shades of this being passed off as true necro also. Also be wary of folded cloth being passed off as necro, it may not be since stuff often appears darker when folded.

Selayna has provided this further information in regard to nightmare, shadow cloth etc:

Selaynas little "Shadow and Mage cloth Tutorial"
(pictures missing)

From left to right: Shadow Cloth, mage cloth 1, mage cloth 2, mage cloth 3, and on the far right is "nightmare cloth."

Shadow cloth was originally obtained by killing blacksmiths (usually in Buc's Den) and cutting up their aprons. It could also be acquired by cutting up newbie cloaks. Since blacksmiths are invulnerable and you can no longer cut up newbie cloaks, shadow cloth is ( as far as I know) a true rare ( though it is of lower desirability then the other rare shades). Below is a picture of my smith decked out in shadow cloth. Note its silvery grey colour.

Mage cloth 1 is a *VERY* similar shade to mage cloth 2. They don't stack, however, so there is a very small difference. Mage cloth 1 can still be acquired by killing black robed mages in dungeons (Fire, Wisp, Shame, etc.) and cutting up their robes. mage cloth 2 was acquired by killing the black robed mages before OSI Removed mage cloth 2, 3, and nightmare cloth from them.

Mage cloth 3 is a shade that is in-between the dark "nightmare" cloth and the common mage cloth 1. It’s a really pretty shade but I haven't sewn mine into an outfit yet. I believe that the bonnet shown is mage cloth 3, but I can’t' swear to it. To the best of my knowledge it is as rare as the darker cloth, but slightly less desirable. Still, if someone confuses the two it's a fairly minor issue, since they are quite similar.

"Nightmare cloth" is probably the rarest *legal* to own clothing there is, with the possible exception of leprechaun boots. It is a very dark colour ( though lighter then the new charcoal cloth, and better blended IMO ).It matches shadow armour beautifully, as well as nightmares ( hence the name). It does seem to be the same colour as the Shadowlord Faction cloth (which may be why they removed it.)

Below is a picture of my main wearing her "Witch" costume, of Nightmare Cloth dress, cloak, and hat, with leprechaun boots.

Leprechaun boots were acquired on Saint Patrick’s Day in '98 (I believe). OSI spawned leprechauns who had whole suits of leprechaun clothing (which had unique colours but was far less desirable then the boots are) and a green mug of ale (relatively common to this day). While the mugs were saved, most of the boots (which are a unique blue-black that is very dark but not *QUITE* true black were mostly thrown out, and the remaining ones are very rare now.

Lastly, there is something called "Faux Shadow” cloth. It is similar in colour to the mage cloth but less well blended it can be made in a dye tub, and can be useful for making a number of things 'close" to shadow colour

The following diagram shows how to make faux shadow, and shows it compared to mage cloth 1 (the pointer is aimed at the faux shadow):

Enjoy,
Selayna's Player

P.S. There is a similar colour that can be purchased from NPC tailors. It is a bit more blue then any of the above cloths, so it can be told apart that way.

7. Pure White cloth / Thrasher Cloth

Some clothing items such as the surcoat default to a pure white colour when un-dyed but this is not the pure white that is meant by this classification. Nor is it the Ice White color from the BOD system.

Pure White originally came from an unknown source. It would reappear later from an exploit (since fixed) where one could take a "Dread Spider Silk" puff that was the color (but used the wool graphic) from one of the "virtue quests" for minor decorative items (introduced in Publish 38, December 2005), and use it on the spinning wheel (then use the resulting yarn to make cloth on the loom). Another source was from the pure white "Britannia Guard" sashes given out on some shards by Event Mods priot to the dread spider silk. Some people would get multiple sashes, salvage them for 2 cloth each, then make things from the resulting cloth - but this ended up being a VERY minor source of the cloth.

The same exploit also allowed the creation of one of the shadow or nightmare (see above) cloth shades from the "thrasher tail" quest item (which was a recolored flax bundle graphic), but it was much more difficult to get the tail, and the dark color was not as desired as the pure white. As a result, there is a LOT more of this cloth around, even if less of it was actually made than of the white cloth.

While illegal to make, it was considered legal to own, and there is still a lot of the white cloth floating around at high prices for sale. The price on the Thrasher cloth is a lot lower, provided that the buyer knows about the exploit (as it is generally sold as "Evil Mage Cloth").

8. Oilcloth Cloth

For a short time one could use the "combine cloth" feature of the tailor menu to create folded cloth out of oilcloths which shared the oilcloth colour. This colour is a green-yellow colour that is almost identical to a shade of green available on the special dye tub. It is so close as to be indistinguishable and so is barely worth the effort since it isn’t exactly an amazing colour to begin with. You cannot get cloth in this exact colour anymore, but you cannot tell it from the special green unless you compare the two together and even then they are barely distinguishable.

9. Faction Purple

When factions first came out an exploit was discovered that allowed you to permanently "dye" any equippable & wearable item the same purple that a person turns when holding a faction sigil. This resulted in purple deer masks, spellbooks, leather armour, metal armour, lanterns... pretty much anything that anyone could equip was dyed purple somewhere. Such items were highly bannable originally, but became so common (the exploit could happen as a total accident) that EA chose to make such items legal, and to legalize the trick to make items turn that color, in 2004. Eventually, it was discovered that very careful setting of a normal Dye Tub could produce it as well.

This is simply cloth that comes from either killing NPC’s and cutting up their clothes or from buying cloth from NPC tailors.
Most NPC cloth colours cannot be obtained from any dyetubs. The colours gotton from NPC’s are less inclined to "bleed" like stuff dyed with normal dye tubs. Such colours are sometimes referred to as "Oils". They are usually more sharp and ‘cleaner’ looking than colours done with conventional dye tubs. The much-overdiscussed "Zog" color is one such shade, of many.

11. AOS color "Slime-dyed" cloth & 2008-2009 Slime colors (Updated!)

In 2008, the Oriental shards had an event where magical slimes could be killed, of many different colours, and their corpses could be used (before they decayed) to color cloth. Among the available colours were the shades that had been unique to the 2003 Age of Shadow reward clothes.

Much to the frustration of players of Oceana, European shards & American shards, they did not get such an event (And for those who HATED those colours, were not warned of such a thing occurring), and in addition, extremely overpriced bolts of cloth started appearing from character transfers from those shards (with persons unaware of the event being suckered for extremely overpriced cloth, being told it was rarer than it actually was). This cloth should be considered MORE common than the Pure White cloth, as the only thing limiting the amount of cloth made was the amount of cloth a person could carry (as the Pure White cloth was made with an item from a quest that was limited to one time per character).

In December 2008, all shards were given a new slime event of this type, but the colors were lacking in many ways. One of the BIG problems is that the slimes only dyed artifacts and special-material items (no cloth dying, except for things like the ML Robes, the Crimson Cincture, etc.), so it is unlikely that we will see many minor artifacts dyed then recycled (especially since so many of the robes were turned in for Spring cleaning 2008 points). It is a shame that these colors could not be used on normal cloth, because the colors include Deep Forest (Ranger) Green, a darker blue, and the Champagne "red" (actually a pink color) previously found only on some of the nearly a decade old champagne flutes and bottles.

12. Various BOD reward colours

With the Publish 16 addition of Tailoring BODs a new range of special colour were made available:

Level 1 cloth colors are the first 4 (left to right) of the top row.
Level 2 cloth colors are the red on the top row, and the first three on the second row.
Level 3 cloth colors are the last two of row 2, and the first two of row 3.
Level 4 cloth colors are the last 3 of row 3, and the charcoal shade at the beginning of row 4.
Level 5 colors are the remaining 4 shades on Row 4.
One can only guess that the layout of the colors in this very old picture, was by someone who thought there was only 4 levels of cloth.

13. Stygian Abyss "Abyss Cloth"

This cloth is needed for imbuing certain items, and is dropped by specific ratmen in the Stygian Abyss dungeon. Naturally, it became available with Publish 60, the introduction of the Stygian Abyss expansion. It is currently unknown if this will continue to be material that one can craft with (cloth coming from quest items having the history that it does), but it is hard to get in sufficient quantities to do anything with (one piece at a time).

It took Corpse over 10 hours to obtain the 18 pieces of cloth needed for this doublet and skirt.

14. Wedding ClothThe High Seas expansion introduced a revamp of MIB/SOS loot, including rare items possible in the chests. One of the items was "An Antique Wedding Dress", that can be recycled for cloth. The colour of the dress (and cloth) is a bit hard to describe, having at least two sub-shades. The best way I can describe it is a cream colour, with peach and blue undertones that show up in certain places. While the dresses drop about every 5 or so SOS chests, it takes two dresses' worth to make most items. It often sells for 100k to 1 million gold per item made of it/stack of 10-15 cloth.

15. A note on sandals

There are a range of Sandals that are of differing colours.
* Pure black were most commonly sought after before the introduction of Tailor BODs. They are legal to own but you can no longer acquire them.
* Silver colours usually come from killing NPC brides and are legal.
* Blues usually come from evil mages and are of course legal.
* With the AoS gift people could chose sandals as a reward and select the option to dye them themselves – so colours can now be seen in all the colours of the dye tub, plus there were several unique colors (at least until 2008).
There are a range of other colours and variations available from a range of NPCs with some people fostering collections. I'll leave it to you to find out where to get them all...

With the Publish 16 Tailoring BODs a range of coloured sandals as reward was made available. These Sandals have a 10% chance of dropping from a small tailor BOD that would produce level 4 reward cloth, or a 20% chance from a small tailor BOD that would drop level 5 reward cloth. They, in fact, come in the COLOURS of those levels of reward cloth, but it is possible to get a level 5 coloured pair of sandals from a level 4 color BOD, and vice versa.
(picture missing)

The original intent of allowing BOD books to be full of unpriced BODs, on vendors, was to encourage people to display their collections' BODs available for trade. That it freed up so many lockdowns in crafters' houses, was a bonus.

And, while many people who do store BODs this way aren't intending to actually trade their BODs, they are still there to be seen, and if one can catch the homeowner present, maybe you can actually arrange a trade.

In other words, this form of storage encourages player interaction, even if it takes the form of, "Buzz off, noob, I don't trade my BODs" (and when that person posts on your shard forum looking for a specific BOD, you can remind them of their words....)

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